smiling sadly at Leonardo, "the master may paint no longer when the pupil surpasses him!" "Maestro!" exclaimed Da Vinci, "what mean you?" "I mean, Leonardo," returned Verocchio, "that I have plainly discovered my day is over, and that yours is about to dawn. is about to dawn. And right it is that it should be so; that each generation should surpass its predecessor. When this picture goes forth to the world, it will proclaim sufficiently legibly that Andrea del Verocchio has been for ever cast into the shade by his pupil Leonardo da Vinci !" The feeling of vanity which these words of the painter might perhaps have excited in Leonardo, was lost in his fear lest jealousy should cool the rising affection of Verocchio for him. He could not help venting this fear: Maestro, do you bear me ill will?" he asked hesitatingly. 66 Verocchio coloured at the implied suspicion; but he answered at once, "Leonardo, let the past, I have said, be forgotten; I have called you my son; can I be jealous of my son?" Verocchio carried into effect his resolution. He never again handled the brush. The painting which had caused him to form such a decision, obtained the success he had predicted, and fully accounted to the world for Andrea's retirement. In the museum of Florence may be seen, among the drawings attributed to Verocchio, the sketch of a female head, doubtless that of his daughter. This head seems to have served as the type for many of the female heads painted by Verrochio's pupils, those for instance of Lorenzo di Credi; but there is no existing female portrait of Leonardo, in which the likeness may not be traced; he seems to have cared for no other model; and when he indeed became the great man he once had only dreamed of, he yet bethought him of Angela, and of the scenes of Villa Verocchio. THE END. LONDON: SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW, New-street-Square. |